Beijing, March 9 (Reporter Ding Jia) The reporter learned from the Chinese Academy of Sciences today that the Beijing Institute of Genomics in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other institutes have cooperated to interpret the "programming language" that directs the gene expression of human embryos for the first time in the world. It was published in the high impact journal "Cell" on May 9.

Prof. Jiang Liu's team has cooperated with Prof. Zijiang Chen's team from the Reproductive Hospital of Shandong University and Jianqiao Liu's team from Guangzhou Medical University to overcome the problem of lack of research materials and established a research method specific for low number cells. It is the first time in the world to study the activation mechanisms of the human embryonic genome.

"There is a very special period of about two days after human fertilization. The cells in this period are very different from all cells in other periods of human beings. During this period, the embryo has almost no gene expressed from the zygotic genome. How do these genes start to express and which genes will be expressed? Which genes to express first and which genes to express later have always been a difficult research point." Prof. Jiang Liu said.

Prof. Jiang Liu and his team found a key molecule that initiates the expression of the human genome, and found that the conserved genes in the evolutionary history will be expressed first, and the new genes will often be expressed later. The reason for this is that cells are programmed so that the regulatory switches of old genes are turned on first.

The study also revealed an important new mechanism for human evolution. There is a segment of DNA in the sequence called a transposon, which often jumps from one region to another, and this jumping produces DNA mutations that cause human evolution.

The researchers determined in this study that the important reason why transposons caused human evolution is that it is mainly active in embryos, causing new mutations in the human genome. And only mutations generated in embryos are more likely to be passed on to offspring, causing human evolution.

Xue Yongbiao, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the director of the Beijing Institute of Genomics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that this achievement can help people better understand the mechanism of birth defects and has important potential clinical value. "For example, it is possible to detect possible deformities in the embryo at an early stage of the fertilized egg, which is of great significance for preventing birth defects and safeguarding the health of the population."

He commented that this year's government work report mentioned that the national science and technology investment should be tilted towards the people's livelihood. As the "national team" of science and technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences should carry out more scientific research in these fields and do more "down-to-earth" work.

How a fertilized egg develops into a human being is one of the biggest questions in life sciences. Scientists already know that development requires genes to be expressed in a programmed manner, at a specific time and in a specific place, and that misexpression of genes can lead to malformations and developmental defects in newborns. As a country with a high incidence of birth defects, about 900,000 children with birth defects are born in China every year, which has caused a heavy mental and economic burden on families, and also seriously threatened the country's population health.